Applications I Structural Bonding
Lightweight Construction of a
Multipurpose Vehicle Cabin
The structural bonding technology has proved itself as a real alternative to welding
in the body shell stage. Walter Mauser GmbH and Henkel demonstrate in a common project,
that a cabin frame, mainly joined by an adhesive, can withstand extreme loads in combination
with a significant reduction of mass.
Simon Stahl, Gerd-Rolf Dietz, Stefan Bischof, Daniel Rothfuß, Raoul Abas
In the past welding has been the tradi-
tional way to build up driver’s cabs for
various non-automotive vehicles. Howev-
er, this technique is limited in metal thick-
ness, as thin walled structures are diffi-
cult to weld due to effects like warping or
complete fusion.
In the automotive industry, where light-
weight construction and fuel consumption
play a key role in the early design stages,
structural bonding applications on the car
body have been launched area-wide since
the nineties. This technique allows the
joining of metal sheets with wall thick-
nesses in the range of 0.7 mm without los-
ing any strength. In addition, an improved
stiffness and fatigue performance of the
glued joint can be obtained compared to
the equivalent welded connection. Due
to these obvious advantages, structural
bonding applications have become a very
attractive alternative for a broad variety of
different industry sectors.
Challenge: Reducing the cabin
weight without compromising safety
Walter Mauser GmbH, a manufacturer of
cabs for special vehicles and construction
machines of all kinds, is a family compa-
ny located in Lower Austria that has grown
from a one-man business into a global play-
er. The reputation of this sought-after spe-
cialty OEM has traveled far and wide.
Around 92 percent of the 15,000 cabs man-
ufactured every year – in 147 different mod-
10 adhesion 4 I 17
els – are exported. As some of their custom-
ers request a significant reduction of mass
to increase operating distances, lightweight
construction is getting more and more im-
portant for them.
Within in a project with a customer pro-
ducing electric-driven multipurpose vehi-
cle, Mauser were faced with reducing the
weight of the cabin by half, without com-
promising safety. These two requirements
challenged them with a problem they had
never before.
Mauser’s approach consisted of the sub-
stitution of the standard steel used for the
frame structure by a high-strength steel.
Through this, they could easily reduce the
material thickness of all sheets and tubes
from 2 mm to 1 mm and retained the same
material strength. As a long-term solution
Mauser thinks using aluminium instead
of steel which will additionally reduce
weight by a factor of three.
The resulting challenge for them was the
selection of an appropriate joining tech-
nology. So far they have used welding
for all permanent steel connections. This
would result in excessive rework. Espe-
cially warping effects would cause a lot
of reworking to reshape the framework.
Introducing structural bonding
The cooperation with Henkel opened
Mauser the opportunity to introduce
bonding as a solution. Henkel has a long-
time experience in structural bonding ap-
plications, which enables them to inte-
grate the technology in a production pro-
cess and support the design of the parts
to be joined.
First Henkel selected an adhesive from
their broad portfolio, based on the require-
ments and production conditions. For this,
intensive preliminary aging and strength
tests were carried out in the Henkel lab-
oratories by using substrate samples pro-
vided by Mauser. To substitute a welded
joint by bonding, a high-strength product
is necessary to guarantee the same per-
formance. Since the adhesive shall be ap-
plied in the body shell stage, the product
must adhere to an oily substrate and ab-
sorb a moderate amount of oil.
Henkel’s one component heat-curing struc-
tural adhesive Teroson EP 5089 meets these
requirements and has proved its outstand-
ing performance in the automotive indus-
try for years at big OEMs. The epoxy-based
product is cured in an oven process and
results, when completely cured, in tensile
shear strengths above 25 N/mm². Due to
its high viscosity it is wash off-resistant,
which becomes important when the struc-
ture runs through dipping bathes.
At the Mauser production site the metal
sheets achieve substrate temperatures up
to 200 °C in the e-coat oven process for 40
minutes, which is sufficient to completely
cure the product. The thermal load in the
downstream powder paint oven process
has no significant influence on the phys-
ical performance of the adhesive. As one

Figure 1 > CAD model of the cabin frame
component heat-curing adhesives have no
initial strength, a mechanical fixation of
the joint like riveting or spot welding is re-
quired. Here Mauser used stitch welding
to connect the metal parts.
Changes of the cabin frame
The design changes of the cabin frame to
prepare the structure for bonding were con-
ducted in a close interchange between the
two partners. Mauser’s construction engi-
neers redesigned the CAD model (figure 1)
based on guidelines provided by Henkel.
Further adaptions and recommendations
were done by Henkel’s technical custom-
er service engineering team by involving
various experts from the company. Espe-
cially joining direction, mechanical loads
on the connections and accessibility for
the stitch welding tool were key parame-
ters for the redesign.
The considered load directions conformed
to the conditions of the Roll Over Protec-
tive Structure (ROPS) test which is a stand-
ardized method to check the driver`s safe-
ty in case of rollover. For dimensioning
of the glue flanges, well-known and es-
tablished values of the automotive indus-
© Henkel, Mauser
Figure 2 > Redesigned areas of the CAD model
try were applied. This means e.g. an over-
lap of the parts to be joined of at least 16
mm which is suitable for a fixation tech-
nique. Figure 2 shows the changes in the
redesigned bonding-appropriate structure.
All areas highlighted in red correspond to
glued joints while some connections will
still be welded (colored in blue).
Building up of the
cabin structure
To support the assembly of the frame, en-
gineers from Henkel’s technical custom-
er service traveled to Mauser’s production
site in Austria. Within one day the cabin
structure was built up step by step. First
the flanges were cleaned to guarantee an
adequate adhesion (figure 3). In doing so
tabs soaked with Henkel’s Teroson VR 20
– a solvent-based universal cleaner- were
used. Usually cleaning becomes necessary
if a contaminated surface exists. This in-
cludes dust or non-tested oils, as Teroson
EP 5089 is able to absorb proved oils up to
an amount of 3 g/m².
The adhesive provided in 300 ml car-
tridges was applied manually by a heat-
ed hand-gun (figure 4). Heating up the
© Henkel, Mauser
adhesive is necessary to reduce the prod-
uct’s viscosity during the application. In
the next step the parts were successive-
ly joined and each fixed by stitch weld-
ing whereby two points were sufficient in
most cases.
Afterwards the cabin frame passed the
regular production line – dipping bathes
for cleaning and e-coat lacquer applica-
tion as well as the e-coat oven itself. The
adhesive cured completely within in the
process which results in a solid and strong
frame.
Prediction of load cases
Parallel to the assembly and real life test
of the cabin, a Finite Element (FE) mod-
el of the structure was created. This en-
abled the prediction of load cases by ap-
plying the simulation technique on the
one hand and gave Mauser the chance
of further design changes in a validated
model on the other hand. Based on the
updated CAD data Henkel’s expert team
created a very detailed model of the cab-
in. As an established tool for complex in-
vestigations like the ROPS test, the non-
linear Finite element software LS-Dyna
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Applications I Structural Bonding

© Henkel, Mauser
© Henkel, Mauser

Figure 3 > Cleaning of the flanges Figure 4 > Teroson EP 5089 application by a heated hand-gun

was used. The steel was modeled by shell
elements and the adhesive by solid ele-
ments. For both materials an elastic-plas-
tic non-linear material model approach
was used. In the adhesive material mod-
el, the failure at a defined plastic strain
was given to point out fracturing of the
glued joints, whilst no failure criterion
was defined in the steel material model.
The mechanical loads for the model
were extracted from the guidelines of the
ROPS test. These constraints, summarized
in table 1, are either defined by maximum
deformation force or deformation energy.
In this case the absolute values of forc-
es and energies are scaled based on the
mass M ref of the entire cabin. Like in the
real life test, the loads were applied suc-
cessively on the frame, whereby deforma-
tions of former steps were the start con-
ditions for the subsequent ones. Figure 5
shows the ROPS setup with a fixed cabin
and the transmission of force of load case
1 via a hydraulic cylinder.

Load case Load value

Back side right,

load direction from the back Deformation energy: E = 1.4 * Mref
1 to the front
E= 1.4 * 900= 1260 J

Back side,
load direction from the top Deformation force: F = 20 * Mref
2 to the bottom
F= 20 * 900= 18000 N

Front side left,

Deformation energy: E = 1.4 * Mref
load direction from the front
3
to the back
E= 1.4 * 900= 1260 J

Side,
load direction from the left to the right
Deformation energy: E = 1.75 * Mref
4
E= 1.75 * 900= 1575 J

Front side,
load direction from the top Deformation force: F = 20 * Mref
5 to the bottom
F= 20 * 900= 18000 N

Table 1 > Load cases of the ROPS test

12 adhesion 4 I 17
# Description Test Simulation

Good conformance of front and

1
back roof frame

Mode of failure in the upper left

corner is validated in the simulation
2 (crack is represented by a high stress
level as the failure criterion is not
defined)

Good conformance at left back

3
transversal frame

Table 2 > Comparison of test and simulation results

deformations of the frame in the FE sim-

ulation were represented precisely by the
real test (Table 2). As there was no failure The Authors
criterion defined in the steel material mod-
el, the high plastic strain concentration in Dipl.-Ing. Simon Stahl
the FEA at certain positions can be used (simon.stahl@henkel.com)
as an indicator to predict the material fail-
ure of the steel frame. Gerd-Rolf Dietz
(gerd-rolf.dietz@henkel.com)
Conclusions
Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Stefan Bischof
The close cooperation of the two part- (stefan.bischof@henkel.com)
ners was in the end the key for the pro-
© Henkel, Mauser

ject’s success. All essential advantages Dr. Daniel Rothfuß

Figure 5 > Load case 1 of ROPS test
Comparison of real life test and
simulation results
The real life ROPS test was conducted by a
certified testing institute and the bonded
frame passed it successfully. Here it was
verified that the driver’s safety, represent-
ed by a zone around the seat, was not af-
fected by the deformed cabin.
The FE simulation showed a good corre-
lation to the real test. The deflections and
of the bonding technology could be re-
vealed, but also how thoroughly the cus-
tomer’s process had to be analyzed. The
selection of an appropriate adhesive, the
preparation of the parts to be joined as
well as the production conditions, had
to be evaluated individually. In addition,
designing parts by involving recent sim-
ulation tools will continue to grow, es-
pecially in the case of adhesive applica-
tions. The present project has shown that
the simulation technique can substitute
complex tests and by that reduce costs.
Once a validated model is created, design
changes can be integrated with relative-
ly low effort and tested on the computer
instead of in real life. //
(daniel.rothfuss@henkel.com)
are part of the European Technical Customer
Service Team at Henkel – responsible for
structural bonding applications in agriculture
and special vehicles.
Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Raoul Abas
(raoul.abas@henkel.com)
works as an engineer at Henkel Global
Engineering Centre (GEC), responsible for
simulation and engineering of structural
adhesive and structural reinforcements in
automotive and transportation.

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